The old man pocketed it but his thanks were of a fashion peculiarly his own:
“Jake Ledbetter, you always was the durndest fool in Junaluska.”
Only one took exception to her gift. That was Aunt Sally Long, the “queer old stick.”
“Now Jakey Ledbetter,” she whined, “I can’t put that caliker to no use in the world. I wove this frock myself mighty nigh five year ago”—she held out her narrow skirt for his inspection—“and I ain’t snagged it yet. I reckon it’s goin’ to last as long’s I do, at any rate I don’t want another frock added unto me. I’d a heap ruther you’d a brung me a pound of snuff.”
“Aunt Sally” (the accommodating Santa Claus took the roll from her and restored it to the tree), “it’s my intention for you to have whatever you can get the most fun out of; I can barter that thar frock for snuff enough to last you all your life, and there’ll be a balance comin’ to you besides; what’ll you have for that?”
“I don’ know, Jakey,” she drawled, and she pleated the hem of her apron while she pondered, “I don’ know; I reckon you might as well bring me a little more snuff.”
The roads were heavy with mud when Bonaparte and Butterfly toiled down into the little straggling town. “This is a Chrisamus tree,” announced the little Santa Claus, and there was no need to tarry there for delivery, for all the foot-free denizens, young, old, and middle-aged, thronged it when it stopped and followed when it moved on, and the tree shed its fruit as if a gale had struck it.
The old Santa Claus held his whip with a fine show of nonchalance while the little one worked among the holly branches, disdainful of the thorns, his eyes afire, his cheeks red hot, and his aureole of yellow hair tossing and tumbling with every motion of his little body. Williebelle, her ears tied up with a red woollen stocking and redolent of turpentine, was there and upon her he bestowed three sticks of peppermint, “two for herself and one for her earache.” He waited in person upon Aunt Polly, bedridden for a dozen years, and the procession was brought to a stand before her door that she might look out upon the first Christmas tree she had ever seen.
“I ’low this is a Methdis’ Christmas tree,” cried an Episcopalian (the only cynical one), “you-all aimed to get ahead of us.”
“No, siree,” answered the old man, “this yer tree’s built according to Grover Cleveland’s plan and he don’t b’lieve in secks. We-all ain’t aimin’ to git ahead of anybody but the bears.”